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Kapolei High School teacher, Cynthia Chong, was recently recognized for her outstanding service by Spectrum and Hawaii Pizza Hut. The two organizations annually honor outstanding teachers from the different high schools, who are making a difference in the lives of their students. The award news was published in the Honolulu Star Advertiser. Cynthia currently teaches 11th and 12th grade English that includes expository writing and literature. Along with the recognition, she received a tote bag on wheels that she uses to carry her papers. She said, “I also received warm recognition from my colleagues, students, neighbors, and friends.”

Jommel Macaraeg, a senior at Waipahu High, tackled a study on the effect of a particular protein called Dynamin 2 on various diseases. He undertook this project as a capstone achievement to earn STEM Honors. Jommel indicates the most challenging aspect of his work was learning about Learning Cell and Molecular Biology at the college/graduate level. His project placed at a state level competition in medical biotechnology and he was also a candidate for the Science Fair Presidential Award. Jommel describes his work in the following technical terms: Continue reading →

Hiromu Ryan Rose, a senior at McKinley High School, created an app that he describes as “similar to a planner and a checklist. You list all your classes or activities and then put tasks under each category that you need to complete.” His purpose in undertaking this project was to emphasize the importance of computer programming and to support its inclusion as a requirement in the high school curriculum. To complete his app, Hiromu gathered information and statistics about the gap between programming jobs and the people who apply for these jobs. He also investigated the benefits of programming for students and how it helped them in their lives.Continue reading →

Cindy Tsou and Lindsay Shiroma, sophomores at Mililani High School, won top honors at the Central District Science Fair held at Honolulu Community College this year. In May 2017, they will present their project entitled, “The Effect of Nutrient Limitation on Algal Biomass Production” at the International Science and Engineering Fair in Los Angeles. These students designed a photo-bioreactor system that provided algae with carbon dioxide, oxygen and aquarium growth lights for an optimal growth environment for the algae. It’s no wonder that these young women placed first when you consider that their research is normally too complex to conduct for a science fair project. As Lindsay tells it

Some of the questions we researched were what nutrients we should use and what concentrations we should use, what kind of algae should we conduct this experiment on, what steps should we take for the analysis, and how could our project help the earth.

Enterprising and creative are two adjectives that define Woody Plaut, National Board certified librarian at Konawaena Intermediate. Woody recognized the need for more course electives that inspired critical thinking in his middle school students at Konawaena. Two years ago, this prompted him to create and teach a course in debate. To his knowledge, this is the first public middle school program of its kind in the state.

His debate classes meet during periods 2 and 4 in a six-period block schedule. This means that Woody works with the students three or four times in a full week. The 7th graders meet in a semester class while the 8th graders meet in quarter classes as well as a semester class.Continue reading →

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About PEARL

The Pathways for Excellence and Achievement in Research and Learning (PEARL) project at the University of Hawaii at Manoa targets training for teams of high school librarians and teachers that are working on senior project research with their students. This professional development initiative is subsidized by a National Leadership grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services